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Can we please stop pretending that survivors simply talking about what happened to them will change anything? They have been talking about what happened to them. For years. Pretending otherwise silences their voices.
Survivors talking about their assaults isn't new. They've been doing it forever. Why are we pretending they haven't? It's weird and offensive.
Yes, some survivors were silenced by shitty laws & I wholeheartedly support campaigns to change those laws. But just changing those laws and having survivors talking about sexual assault won't actually prevent it.
I'm deeply uncomfortable with the way we rely on survivors publicly baring their wounds to the world and then pretend that that's "doing something".
Pretending that just talking about sexual violence changes anything puts the onus on survivors to drive that change. It lets everyone else off the hook.
I will always, wholeheartedly, stand with any survivor who wants to tell their story. But I won't pretend that doing so is a) easy or b) doesn't often come with harmful side effects. And I won't pretend that every survivor gets the same opportunity to tell their story. They don't
I've worked with & spoken to hundreds of survivors over the years. I can tell you that even if some of them wanted to tell their story publicly, they wouldn't get the same attention as others.
Because some survivors aren't white enough, or straight enough. Some of them are too disabled, or their English isn't good enough. Some of them are too old. Some of them were too drunk or too high or too poor when they were assaulted.
Australia doesn't really want to hear from those survivors. Not really. Their stories are too messy, or they're not the sorts of people we want to see on tv. They can speak as much as they want. Hardly anyone will listen.
So, no. Survivors just speaking about their assaults won't change anything. It hasn't changed anything in the decades that they've already been doing that. Stop letting those who can actually create change off the damn hook by pretending it does.
These past few days & weeks have been hard. They've been distressing for so many, including myself. It's become abundantly clear that Australia isn't a country that's ready to really address our endemic sexual violence issue.
We're not ready to sit with the discomfort of the messy reality of sexual violence. We're not ready to actually do the hard work, we'd rather put the onus for change on survivors. We'd rather pretend that just talking about it is the solution.
There are so many incredible survivors who have spoken. Hell, they haven't just been speaking, they've been screaming from the rooftops for decades. There are so many amazing people who have been doing the work. Trying. Every damn day. I'm grateful to all of them.
I believe that we can create lasting change. But we have to stop pretending that survivors talking about it will prevent rape. We have to stop asking them to perform their trauma for us. We have to stop letting governments & institutions & perpetrators off the hook.
And in case anyone isn't sure what I mean in this thread, I've had journalists flat out tell me that student survivor stories "aren't newsworthy", that their readers "won't care". I've had them ask if I "have more mainstream looking survivors" that they can speak to.
I've had them tell me that a survivor won't get a sympathetic reaction because they were in a relationship with the person who raped them & they didn't leave immediately. I've had them ask if I know survivors who "speak better English".
I don't blame those journos at all. They know their audiences. They know what the reaction will be. I blame us. I blame all of us because we've created a world in which we pretend that only some survivor stories matter.
We've created a world where we only pay attention to survivors who look or act a certain way. We've created a world where only stories that involve some kind of high-profile aspect matter. They're the ones that we're okay to hear, to listen to.
And in doing so, we've silenced - and continue to silence - so many voices. But worse, in doing so, we've created a world where all we need to do to 'solve sexual violence' is have a couple of survivors bare their wounds to the world, tell them how inspiring they are & that's it
We've created a world where governments are let off the hook for slashing funding for prevention education, where institutions aren't held accountable for failing to create safe environments & where perpetrators are completely erased from the narrative.
We know how to fix it. We know what works, but we choose not to. So, I'm asking you now to make a better choice. Choose to do more than just ask for survivor stories. Choose to be angry. Choose action over inspiration.
